October sees Baby Loss Awareness Week and the Wave of Light. I will be holding a space at St Michael’s Church in West Andover next week. The Wave of Light is something that is very dear to my heart not just as a vicar, but as a mum too. This is my story.

As with most baby loss stories ours begins with joy.

We had decided not to try too hard, I was in my final year at vicar school and many changes were ahead. We stopped contraception and enjoyed being with each other. As well as working towards my Masters in Theology and fulfilling vicar training requirements I had written, directed, and produced the college pantomime (oh yes I had!). I had been feeling tired, but understandably so, and then a group of us from college went on a silent retreat to Glasshampton Monastery and I woke one morning wanting to laugh and sing Tell Out My Soul. Having struggled to keep the joyful giggles at bay through a silent breakfast where simply asking for the marmalade was a challenge, I returned to my ‘cell’ where it occurred to me do some maths. As I counted back through the pages of my diary I realised that this joy within was actually a much wanted and immediately loved baby. He was our secret gift from God and would remain so.

We followed the advice not to tell anyone that we were expecting until we had safely come through the first trimester, but that never happened. I cradled the baby within and told only those who absolutely needed to know, until we had reached that magical stage where we could ‘book in’ with a midwife, receive our pregnancy notes book with its bright yellow cover and our first Bounty Pack. And then it happened.

One minute we are making plans and reading the pregnancy books to see what I was growing today, finger nails or eye lashes or a vital organ, the next I was bleeding, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. My midwife sent me for a scan at the hospital where I had to walk past the shop selling handknitted baby clothes and celebratory balloons, to be told there was no heartbeat and nothing to see.

I had literally lost my baby.

We were taken into a small room with a box of tissues and a nurse who confirmed I was no longer pregnant, and then asked why I was crying.

In some ways I was fortunate. I had my faith and firmly believed that my baby was, is, in heaven, and that one day I will be able to cradle them in my arms. I had also, ironically, just completed a module on rituals and life events including miscarriage and the loss of a baby. But we now had to break the news to a wider circle. I had to take time off from studies and be absent from a particularly special piece of worship I had been preparing, which felt like another loss. Friends brought chocolate cake and DVDs (this was pre-Netflix), home-cooked meals, and bottles of wine to help with the bleeding to naturally flush away the lining of my empty womb: a blessing meaning I wouldn’t need any further medical intervention.

But now I was empty. Life and death had happened within me. There was nothing left to show, not even a blurry photo of a scan. I was told that everything was fine and I could try again, but no-one told me how to grieve alone.

Six weeks later I was to be ordained. We moved house, we kept busy painting every room except the one that should have been the Nursery. I remember standing in the kitchen with paint splattered hair telling God I had nothing left to say, and I literally turned around as if God was physically present, turning my back on God. This was not how I had planned to prepare to be ordained. I should have been buzzing with joy and spiritual expectations, my prayer-life should have been on fire, not silent with grief. In that moment I felt God say

It’s OK, I am cradling you until you are ready.

Joining my cohort of vicars-to-be on our ordination retreat was bitter sweet. It should have been joyful and exciting, but here I was weeping. I was angry with God, and disappointed. I had felt God urge me towards starting a family, and now, the God who knits us together in our mother’s womb had decided to cast off my child before they were fully formed.

Twenty one years later, I have two amazing grown up children. Most of the hurt has softened. Grief does that. It doesn’t disappear completely, but the raw edges do become smooth. I look back at that first day of motherhood when I couldn’t stop giggling in the silence of prayerful retreat as a time of blessing, and, briefly, joy.

As our first child’s due date approached we decided to do something positive rather than mournful. We took the day off work and went to the city where we had met, drank posh hot chocolate, and admired the Christmas lights which had just been switched on. Then something amazing happened: the pregnancy test was positive. A day I had been dreading had instead been filled with hope. My relationship with God was restored.

We have a happy ending, and I look forward to one day meeting the child who has gone ahead of us. I know not everyone’s story has a happy ending. One in Four known pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Miscarriages and stillbirths can happen multiple times with that scar of grief becoming deeper and deeper. Some people never go on to hold a child in their arms.

We are told to keep these stories to ourselves. It was only after we lost our baby that I discovered my aunt had lost four babies before her daughter was born. So I share my story, to give others the permission to share theirs. To acknowledge the child and the grief and the loss. Thankfully things are changing, but for many the lack of evidence that their baby ever existed is a pain they continue to carry, so today, light your candle, name your child, and we will remember them with you.

The Global Wave of Light takes place at 7pm on the 15th October each year.